How was the deal done?

The problem with Seven was that his record was weighed down by too much debt. This was always going to be a stumbling block for Fairfax should he acquire Seven.

So, Seven is unlikely to be a gatecrasher in this Fairfax / Nine tie-up. Instead, smart money thinks the Fairfax deal will put pressure on Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (rival Domain REA's majority owner) and Stokes to make some sort of rival rally.

Numbers man

Falloon is a man-number – and he understands the dangers of logging from a predominantly traditional media company with a lot of debt. Over the years, Fairfax sold badets to reduce its borrowings

Thus, just a month ago, Nine entered the room with an acceptable and realistic agreement for Fairfax. Falloon and Marks worked together because they had worked together many years ago when they were both Packer executives at Nine and PBL.

As a close badociate of the case described – they had a relationship of trust. Falloon has been invited to join Nine's board of directors and while Nine's current chairman, Peter Costello, will remain in that role for a few years, it is understood that Falloon will eventually replace him.

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It was not until the end of June that Nine had something of the essence to bring to the transaction – a healthy stock market. This provided him with a strong currency for his offer. Fairfax shareholders will receive nine shares as the lion's share of the consideration.

In October last year, Nine shares were trading at around $ 1.50. When the Fairfax offer was announced Thursday, nine shares were at $ 2.52. The stock price improvement reflects the gains made by Nine over the past two years. In November 2016, Nine was trading at an alarming 85 cents.

But in the past year and a half, Nine's management has evolved strategically and has had some lucky breaks. The broadcaster gained ground in the ratings war with Seven and negotiated a better summer sport deal by replacing cricket with tennis.

Good deeds, free kicks

And he also received some free kicks. Seven dropped the ball to some extent after being distracted by the fallout from his CEO Tim Worner's affair with staff member Amber Harrison.

Around the same time, Nine's other competitor, Ten, was placed in disarray after the Murdoch fought with the American media giant CBS for the property.

And Facebook has been under pressure on its data leak scandal, and advertisers have rebelled on the social media network. As a result, all traditional media were shot in the arm.

It played well for Nine. By the end of June, its share price had increased enough to make Fairfax's purchase offer commercially sound.

The Fairfax board of directors was to convince the board that the price of the offer represented a premium. Fairfax's Current Price

Fairfax shareholders must now verify that they believe that Nine's price gains are sustainable – and therefore whether Fairfax's takeover premium is real.

some obvious overhead – with savings seen at around $ 50 million – and directing its marketing machine to turbo-charge two of Fairfax's leading digital badets, the Domain Real Estate website and the joint venture video streaming business Stan, as well as the control of a good radio network performance and use all the cross-promotion opportunities that this offers.